APPENDIX. 13 



ten to the Lords of the Treasury, recommending the purchase to the con- 

 sideration of their Lordships. 



" A letter, dated the 29th July, from the Treasury was read, stating that 

 the Lords Commissioners concurred in opinion -with the Trustees, that the 

 opportunity should not be lost of acquiring possession of Mr. Hawkins's 

 collection of fossil organic remains, to the great value of which such strong 

 testimony is borne by most competent witnesses, and that their Lordships 

 had directed an estimate for £1,310 5s. for the purchase of them to be laid 

 before Parliament. 



" /. Forshally Secretary. 

 " British Museum, 22 July, 1835." 



Without considering it necessary to quote farther from the 

 Parliamentary Report, I shall merely state that it appears from 

 the rest of the British-Museum Minutes, that shortly after 

 Mr. Hawkins's collection had been removed to the British 

 Museum, a communication was made to the Trustees by the 

 Principal of the Natural History department, Mr. Konig, res- 

 pecting some modelled parts of the two largest specimens; — 

 that in consequence of this communication an enquiry into the 

 matter was instituted, but that the explanations afforded were 

 deemed so far satisfactory, that the Trustees came to the de- 

 termination "that it was unnecessary to enquire farther into 

 the circumstances attending the purchase of Mr. Hawkins's 

 collection." 



It so happened that during the treaty with the British Mu- 

 seum for the sale of his fossils, Mr. Hawkins had taken me, 

 in company with a third party, to inspect his collection ; 

 and circumstances connected wdth this visit led me narrowly 

 to look into the printed details of the Parliamentary investiga- 

 tion. Now from this perusal I certainly received an unfa- 

 vourable impression of the nature of the transaction, as it 

 regarded the seller, but I had no wish to render that opi- 

 nion notorious by any public expression of it, though I 

 most assuredly conceived myself at liberty to discuss the mat- 

 ter, under all ordinary circumstances, — a privilege which I 

 presume, in common with myself, every one else would claim, 

 in respect to any other national purchase which may subse- 

 quently have become a subject of Parliamentary investigation. 

 In the latter part of 1838 I was dining at the house of an 

 intimate friend, and a near relative of the late Dr. Thomas 

 Young, whose name as a philosopher, ranks among the high- 

 est that this country can boast of, when Mr. Hawkins's name 

 was introduced (not by myself), and some questions put to 

 me which elicited my opinion upon the affair with the British 

 Museum. From circumstances w^hich then transpired, I found 

 that the parties who had volunteered the interrogatories were 



